Browsed byCategory: Life

A lot has happened since I last blogged, which I guess is par for the course when you blog maybe 10 times a year. I’d like to say I’m trying to improve on that ratio, but the reality is I’m not trying all that hard. If you’re really antsy for some SMTT updates (and why wouldn’t you be? I’m fabulous 😉 ) the best way to stay up to date is to follow my instagram accounts. The horse one is…

I feel like there’s still so much I wanted to update y’all on in my long summer of no blogging what-so-ever. Of course, a lot of that involved horse show updates that seem too painful to write now, but I am feeling good enough about life to catch y’all up on some non-Simon related areas. Today we delve into the oh so fun topic of my knees. For the past several years, I’ve had pain in both knees. If I…

It’s been six months since my last blog post. That’s probably the longest I’ve ever gone without updating SMTT since it started, and the number surprises me. I could have sworn it had only been a month or two, but here we are. During those six months, a lot has happened. Most of it I’ll update on the blog in chunks. The short story? The animals and I are well — mostly. Life is hectic and crazy and I’ve put…

Watch Scrubs. Scrubs is the perfect depression TV show. It’s funny enough to make your facial muscles twitch upwards every few episodes, but dark enough to remind you that people die — often early and unfairly. Ignore the diet that’s actually been working really well for you. Pick up a sorrow pizza instead. Get a side of sorrow chicken fingers to go with. Extra dipping sauce. Overeat, and go to bed curled on your side with a pillow around your stomach that aches…

Get a referral to an orthopedic surgeon for your continuing knee pain. Find out that your legs aren’t in straight alignment. Your knees are angled to the inside, but your hip and ankle are straight — so every time you step down your knee cap grinds out. Hear it’s super common in women, but most don’t show symptoms until their 50’s. Because you’re active, you have pain a lot earlier. Learn it’s not curable. Start thinking about what chronic pain…

It was almost a month ago that I updated everyone on how the keto diet was going, and even though that was only three blog posts ago (lord I need to post more!) I’m back this morning with more. At the end of last week, I hit 25 lbs lost and officially halfway to my (first?) goal. That statement is a little bananas to me. This isn’t my first weight loss rodeo (full story coming to an online magazine near…

In my overly ambitious goals post, I said that I wanted to lose 50 pounds this year. Almost two months into 2018, this number is still super intimidating to me. In fact, I keep remembering it as 40 instead of 50, but nope — it’s right there on the page. Fifty. I struggle about blogging and discussing weight loss, because it’s something I tend to get hyper focused on. This is not my first rodeo, but I really want it to…

Although it’s related, my self-titled “Month of Deprivation” isn’t 100% tied to my overly ambitious 2018 goals. Not entirely. See, I went a little balls to the wall over winter break. Being a partially-employed graduate student, I took full advantage of my winter vacation and left Riverside the day after classes ended. I planned an excursion involving roughly two weeks in Austin, two weeks of Raleigh, and thirty days of friends, food and fun. Surprise unicorn birthday party? Check. 1/2…

Y’all I’m not sure what’s happened to me. I don’t know if it was the near thirty day stretch of drinking seeing friends or a continuation of the goals I kind of started last year, but I landed in 2018 ready to kick ass and take names. It’s been a long time since I’ve started a year fresh and prepared to tackle challenges. Some of that I blame on Tim’s death, but that’s not all of it. I’ve never been…

I knew this blog would take a hit when I started grad school this fall. Part of that is simply time management between work, freelance writing, schoolwork, and working on my memoir. I’ve learned there’s such thing as a monogamous writer, and while I occasionally dabble with the occasional side project, there’s really only room in my heart for one word baby at a time. That current word baby is my memoir. It feels like the most important thing that…

Two great things happened in the last seven days, and they sandwich the end (hopefully) of my adjustment to grad school depression that’s been lingering since I started school. After a week of questioning all my life choices, crying in my professor’s office and wondering if I could ever be successful as a writer, I decided to give myself a break for the weekend and be as social as possible. One of those social events was heading to Del Mar…

Hello undergraduate students of UCR! It’s me, that old person on campus who you tend to ask for directions because she appears to have been to college for a long time. Unfortunately, I’m just as clueless as you are when it comes to finding the rooms in the Humanities & Social Sciences building… but I do have a few tips for you in other areas. You see, because I am a mature student (read: old) and have successfully completed an undergraduate…